April 2009

REsources for Living

BY LYNN UNGAR, MINISTER FOR LIFESPAN LEARNING, CHURCH OF THE LARGER FELLOWSHIP

I suppose it’s no surprise that both the Easter story and the Passover story have been made into movies. For one thing, Jesus, the lead in the Easter story, and Moses, the lead in the Passover story, are the superstars of their religions. But even setting aside the fact that people would likely want to see a movie about the starting place of their religion, both Jesus and Moses have good, exciting stories. Well, OK, the Easter story really is about the end of the life of Jesus, not the beginning, so you miss all the fun Christmas stuff about being born in a stable and Wise Men and the star and everything. But still, the story of a man who defies political and religious authority to preach his message of love and peace makes for a good drama. Especially when you throw in cheering crowds who eventually turn against him, betrayal by some of his closest supporters, trials in not one but two different courts of law (very popular on TV at least), and a gory, but very dramatic, death scene.

And if the Easter story of the last days of Jesus makes for a tense drama, the story of Moses leading the Hebrew people out of slavery in Egypt seems designed for a blockbuster action adventure. Here’s a man who is born into a family of Jewish slaves, but is raised in the palace of the Egyptian Pharaoh, treated as a prince. But eventually he sees the injustice being done to the Hebrew people, kills a man who is beating a slave, and runs off to the mountains. Then we get to the big special effects. While he’s off quietly herding sheep, a voice speaks to Moses from out of a bush that blazes with fire, telling him to go to Pharaoh and insist that the Hebrew people be set free from slavery. This reluctant hero (aren’t the best heroes all reluctant?) eventually screws up his courage and goes to Pharaoh, who not surprisingly refuses. Now we get into the really big special effects, with a whole series of terrible plagues that happen each time Pharaoh refuses to release the Hebrew slaves. Rivers of blood, frogs everywhere, vast clouds of bugs eating everything in sight—big effects, each more gruesome than the last.

Then we get the big escape scene, where Moses leads the people out of Egypt, with Pharaoh’s army close behind them. And then the biggest special effect of all, as Moses actually parts the waters of the Red Sea, so that his people can escape on a path through the water itself before it closes on the soldiers who are gaining on them. Talk about a big finish!

Except that it isn’t the end of the story. In fact, that’s the odd thing about both of these stories. Neither of them really quite finishes in a proper Hollywood way. In fact, you could say that neither story really finishes at all. In the Easter story Jesus is killed in a horrible way, and buried in a cave. Which is a very sad ending, though not so strange for a drama. But then, three days later, his friends see that the stone which blocked the entry to the cave, is rolled away, and the body is gone. Gone where? Nobody knows. But somehow (the “how” varies depending on which version of the story you are reading) Jesus appears to his friends and tells them to go out and keep preaching the message of love and peace. And then he disappears again. So the friends go out and keep preaching about loving your neighbor and sharing with the poor and all that, and the story doesn’t really end.

Now, that may seem like it doesn’t make for a really clear ending for a movie, but the story of Moses and the Hebrew people literally just wanders off. Once they escape from slavery, they spend forty years wandering around in the desert wilderness until they finally come to the Promised Land where they can settle down. Moses never even makes it there. He dies of old age along the way. No big finish. Really no finish at all.

Which makes for not such a good movie, but for a much better religion. You see, movies are generally about heroes, larger-than-life people who save the world, or at least save themselves. Movies are their stories, and we sit back and watch in admiration as they do amazing, or at least interesting, stuff. But religion is different. In the end, religious stories aren’t about them, the heroes. Religious stories are about us, the folks who just keep muddling through, trying to do our best. The ending of the Easter story doesn’t end because it asks Christians to keep going out to preach—and live—Jesus’ message of love and compassion. The ending of the Passover story doesn’t end because it asks the Jewish people to keep on moving toward the Promised Land of justice and freedom. Religious stories are the stories of all of us, and so long as we live, we are still on the journey toward love and justice and compassion and freedom. It may not make for a very good movie, but it makes for a good life.